Pastel drawing of dad

[Lewis MacKenzie]

I've been on holiday in Burgundy with my family this past week, and spent yesterday wandering around the beautiful medieval town of Dole. There was a nice little art store there and I popped in to have a look around, eventually emerging with a couple of nice new brushes and a box of Sennelier extra soft pastels to replace the dreadful ones I'd bought in Glasgow to take with me. I was eager to try them out, and got my chance when we were waiting to get a table at a local restaurant. I spent about 40 minutes on this drawing of my dad. He looks a bit more grumpy and uncouth here than he does in reality (which is still pretty grumpy and uncouth), but I was generally pretty happy with the result, as everything else I've done recently has been garbage. The pastels were a joy to work with.

Thanks in advance for any critiques, and please feel free to be utterly merciless. :-) (Oh - and apologies for the image quality, the photo was taken on my phone.)